


Non nobis, Domine

by mainland



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Gen, M/M, religious torture, the faintest whiff of implied future (?) incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:21:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28133853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mainland/pseuds/mainland
Summary: The love between the cavalier and the necromancer should be centered on duty.Silas grows up with Colum and learns the responsibilities of his House.
Relationships: Colum Asht/Silas Octakiseron
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Non nobis, Domine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ryuutchi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryuutchi/gifts).



When Silas was eight years old, the Master Templar took him outside the church for his lessons for the first time. He bid Silas to leave his books on the table after morning prayer, and they were met by Brother Colum at the door of the private chapel with a scarf that he tucked under Silas' tiny chin. Silas didn't usually see Brother Colum again after breakfast until the noonday meal, so this in itself was a treat. As with all blessings, he responded solemnly, greeting Brother Colum not with a smile but a nod. 

The Master Templar led them from the chapel and down the right transept, which terminated in a narrow staircase that Silas had never ascended before. They climbed until Silas' scarf was wet from his panting breath, and finally reached a landing with a plain steel door. It was unlocked, like all the doors within the Eighth except those in the inner sacristy and the laboratories, and opened onto a long, high-ceiled space, like a curving tunnel. The Master Templar stepped through and Silas followed with the comforting bulk of Brother Colum at his back.

Silas recognized it as a prayer sanctum, though not one he had previously visited. It was so cold that his breath was visible immediately; they had climbed high enough that the room must be built right against the exterior wall of the Spire. Unlike the other prayer sanctums, which usually had at least one or two white-cloaked chaplains, this one was completely deserted and minimally furnished even by Eighth standards, the only decor being a line of pale statues along the outer wall. 

"Silas," said the Master Templar without turning to him. "What is your body?"

"My body is not my own," Silas recited without pause. "My body is a temple of God and a gift from God. My body was bought at a great price, and I return the cost by glorifying God."

"And what is your soul?"

"My soul is the engine of God; what brings me closest to divinity and what hoists Him above us."

The Master Templar paused before the statues. Each of them appeared unique, and they all reminded Silas of fanciful bone constructs, like the single sketch rendering that was included in the library's sparing records on the profane Ninth House. The one nearest to the door had five jagged protrusions sprouting from its core like limbs and a chunky block of a head from which splayed a row of six-inch teeth. Silas thought the colour wasn't quite right; it was not quite the colour of bone. 

"Yes," said the Master Templar. "All souls under Dominicus are the tools of the Necromancer Divine, and that is truer for us than for any other House. As Keepers of the Tome…" 

"As Keepers of the Tome, we are the eyes of the King Undying where He does not see, and we are His hand when He cannot bear to strike." Silas glanced at Brother Colum, wondering if he knew why they were repeating basic tenets in a freezing room. 

"You are heir to this House and you know the scripture," said the head of the House. "But you have not yet been taught your duties, nor the consequences should you fail at them." The Master Templar gestured towards Colum. "You have not yet learned your tools." 

"I know Brother Colum will help me." Silas prompted, ready for the lesson to start. 

"You chose Brother Colum with your birth. When you serve the Emperor, he will be the first apparatus you reach for and the last one you put away. That was his design and the maintenance of such is his own duty, but a well-crafted sword is only as strong as its handler."

Silas thought this was realistically untrue—the difference between him and Brother Colum, both in width and height, could be measured in feet—but he nodded. Brother Colum nodded too. 

The Master Templar walked a few paces, taking them past a man-sized statue overlaid with carved ropes of varying thicknesses, like an arterial web, from which large tumourous lumps grew at irregular intervals. The lumps clustered at the midsection, appearing taut and slightly oily, and Silas wrenched his eyes away. The Eighth House, elbow-deep in biological engineering, did not dress itself as a lamb and was inured to the grotesque. Silas had spent time in the laboratories since he was six.

There was something particularly hideous about this room. 

"You are the Emperor's engine, and Brother Colum is your fuel; you will draw power from him like water from a well," said the Master Templar, and he described the theorem to Silas in three brief sentences. 

"That will not be your lesson today. You won't be ready for years yet." 

Silas looked at Brother Colum again, who stood next to a statue with no describable shape at all. Brother Colum met his eyes as though he were seated across Silas at their dining table, his hands still and loose as though he were waiting to hang up Silas' coat. He looked at Silas as he always did: readily. 

"What is my lesson today, Master Templar?"

"Later you'll return to the study and practice your summons," the Master Templar said dismissively. "I brought you here to illustrate the duties of this House, Silas, and going forward you should visit this room whenever you feel you need a reminder. You've learnt the principles, and before you are taught the tools, you must know what should happen if you misuse and violate the sanctity of the Eighth." 

The statue they had stopped before was that of a human man, albeit one whose bones were at odds with his flesh, like his skeleton had taken a running start just as his skin skidded to a stop.

Brother Colum shifted his weight so he was close behind Silas' shoulder. 

"The corrupted cavaliers of the Eighth," said the Master Templar, "are entombed here as a warning to you." 

_Some have tried to characterize the relationship as the cavalier's obedience to the necromancer, but the necromancer must be obedient to the needs of the cavalier without being asked or prompted; theirs is arguably the heavier burden._

When Silas was eleven, he fed upon Colum for the first time. As Silas' control of spirit magic stabilized, Colum's daily injections and regimes intensified, until sometimes his broad body seemed to creak and groan like a ship hull under pressure.

"That one is new." 

Colum loaded the ampoule into his auto-injection cartridge with a neat _schlick_ and pressed down. "There's no need for you to take notice of these things, Si."

"They make me sit in on all your physicals." Silas pointed out. "I'm not going to be an engineer, but it would benefit me to understand the science."

Colum released the cartridge, exposing a glimpse of the thumbprint bruise on his vastus lateralis before he rolled his trouser leg back down his thigh. The evening injections had only started bruising within the last six months. "Do you think it would benefit you to understand how I clean my rapier?"

Silas dangled his legs from his chair until Colum came over with a translucent basin filled with milky liquid. He removed Silas' shoes and socks and very gently lifted the small feet to press his mouth to the pad of each big toe. Both heels fit in the cup of one callused palm, the other hand circling the ankles with thumb and forefinger. Colum kissed the child's feet from toe to ankle before he dipped them in the basin to wash, reverent and perfunctory. Silas remained still despite the faint tickle; he hadn't squirmed during this ritual since he was four years old.

Colum dried Silas' feet with the cloth at his belt and slid them into slippers. Silas hopped off the chair and made his way to the bathroom, letting Colum gather his nightclothes. 

"I know what point you're trying to make, but I don't agree." Silas managed to say in front of the sink before Colum gently engulfed his face with a damp, warm washcloth. Once cleaned, he held his arms out to be disrobed.

"Forgive me, Master Silas."

"Brother Colum, I don't like when you evade by apologizing either," Silas announced. Colum straightened Silas' chalk-white nightshirt and proffered his shoulder for Silas to steady himself while Colum put his legs through the pants. Dressed, Silas hoisted himself onto a tall stool for Colum to unbraid and brush his hair. 

"... Forgive me, Master Silas." Colum's reflection in the bathroom mirror was grave—he rarely smiled—but Silas could hear the humour in his voice. "Perhaps I can make it up to you with a bit of sugar in your porridge tomorrow morning."

Food was for sustenance, not for pleasure, but Silas hadn't quite mastered all his minor desires. "Just the littlest bit." He would fast more devoutly this week to atone for the indulgence, he vowed.

The next morning, Colum capitulated and explained his latest prescription over breakfast, which was Silas' first meal of the day and Colum's second of six. It was a slow-release sedative, a low dose, just to make it easier for him during Silas' first attempt.

"Don't worry, Si. They don't usually allow practitioners to siphon before the age of thirteen, but you are an exceptional necromancer." 

Silas knew this, but he also knew the strength of the Eighth House grew more stretched every year and that the Master Templar's cavalier primary, Sister Vitula Asht from Colum's branch of the family, had spent most of the past decade in her bedchamber. A Master Templar rarely held their post after their cavalier was decommissioned—sometimes a relative could serve as a suitable temporary replacement, and the engineers were always tinkering with viable clones, but the Eighth House tended to anoint its heirs quickly for reasons beyond prodigy. 

"Can we try—now?"

Colum put down his fork. "You're supposed to be supervised." 

"I'm exceptional," Silas countered. His fingers clenched around the edge of his chair beneath the table. 

"Silas…" 

"Just so I know what it feels like. So I know what to expect—in case I make a mistake." 

"Master Silas, you do not need to ask for my permission," Colum said quietly. "I am your cavalier."

Silas frowned but he had no words to argue with, having used them all in previous disagreements with Colum and separately with the Master Templar. Colum was patient yet firm about his authority on two things: the reason he had been born, and the reason for how he lived every day since. A cavalier was their necromancer's source of strength; Silas was nullified without Colum, and Colum only had to point to his brothers Ram and Capris, rendered extraneous, to complete the point. It was absurd, after all, to imagine the Master Templar asking to be allowed to siphon. Insufficiently, Silas said, "Still, I am your necromancer." 

Colum took one last drink of water and set his cup firmly on the table. "Ready, Master Silas."

Silas was immediately damp with sweat, and he had to touch his brow to check—clear, not blood. Nothing wrong with him, at least necromantically. He took a steadying breath. 

Colum came around the table and kneeled next to him so that he was in reach. Siphoning was possible from a distance, but contact made it substantially easier. Silas refrained from thanking Colum aloud, and gingerly placed his right hand on Colum's shoulder.

He knew where Colum's soul was. He had been attuned to it for as long as he could remember, for as long as he had been able to identify the energies that surrounded other people as their souls. The River, he had been taught to find. The process of wedging Colum's soul into that gap between life and the afterlife and using it as a conduit, he had been taught.

Closing his eyes, Silas reached for Colum. 

Right away, he hit a membrane of resistance—he could tell it was instinctive, automatic, but a strange indignation welled in him and he levied against the quivering barrier that held him at bay. It held for a moment, tensing in reaction, but, irritated, he prodded—pushed—cleaved his way clean through Colum with a burst of pressure like eardrums popping, and plunged his hands into raw electricity. 

Agony, so vicious and bright that he was numb to feeling for a second. It raked claws up his arms, across his face and the vitreous jelly of his eyeballs, and then right before he decided he couldn't bear it, the pain muted like someone had hit a switch. Like he had been encased in a protective sheath, the fire clarified through a filter that suffused him with radiation. 

This energy wasn't Colum's soul. This deluge was coming from across the River. 

Light flared in the corner of Silas' eye, refracted off his drinking glass. Not from the room's electric lamps, he realized, but from his own body, alight with power. Colum groaned, and the sound seemed to manifest in solid form, distending the front of his throat— 

Afterwards, Silas trembled in silence with both hands flat on the table. Drops of blood dotted the plate beneath his face. Colum remained on his knees, entirely still, his bronzed face pale. A thin line of blood trickled from his nose.

"You fought me," Silas said, remembering the pain—the power—that had taunted him from the other side of that shivering membrane. That had enticed him into force. "The sedative was for me. To make it easier for me against you."

He thought of the morgue in the Spire, and he didn't notice Colum's lack of response until several seconds had passed.

"Oh," he gasped, "I bid you return. I bid you return."

Colum's body shuddered. 

"I bid you—oh, Brother Colum."

Colum coughed, voice raspy like he'd had something stuck in his throat. "Forgive me, Master Silas."

_The necromancer must be a pure expression of their art to the cavalier. The cavalier must strive for perfection in theirs, to gain the necromancer's admiration and trust._

Following a perfect first demonstration before an audience of Eighth necromancers, Silas continued to practice under the Master Templar's scrupulous eye. Unnerved into caution, Silas portioned his own progress, doling out only enough improvement to avoid concern. There were no more incidents for a period of time.

"I wonder sometimes," Colum said one night, entering the sitting room with a meal tray to break Silas' evening fast, "whether you know we are at war."

Silas emerged from his study and came to the dining table. "Brother Colum, I don't actually believe you wonder that." 

He seated himself and held out a hand to receive the sheaf of flimsy tucked under the water carafe. Reports from Colum's daily examinations, charts and measurements that detailed every quantifiable aspect of Colum's body. Silas paged through them diligently, although he attended five of the examinations in-person every week. 

Colum set out the rest of the dishes from the tray and took the opposite seat. "You're thirteen this month, which is old enough for a Cohort tour. You won't be on the front lines, but you will be at war, Si. I think that warrants exercising the full extent of your abilities."

"I've never known you to state the obvious, Brother Colum."

"I've rarely thought you needed it." Colum unhooked a leather utility roll from his belt and flipped it open on the table, revealing a series of vials and pill canisters. "I'm not saying you don't do well. You're the best necromancer this House has had in generations. I know you're capable of more, and this is me telling you"—he gestured to the medicines before them—"that _I_ am designed to be capable of more."

"Hubris is a sin," said Silas.

"It's not arrogant to be resolute. Your faith must be unshakeable to wield the license of the Eighth House."

Silas always gave the stiff impression of being twice his age, but now his troubled face looked almost young. His relationship with his cavalier had not noticeably changed since beginning to practice the Eighth's art, but he could sense a proximate danger like a stranger's breath on the back of his neck. He didn't remember a day without Colum a step behind him, and he knew there had been none; Colum had waited in the delivery room for him, his shadow since birth. Trained to be his primary caretaker through each stage of life, closer to him than his own mother. Family was a purposeless concept in Ottavian culture, since bloodlines were an occupational concern and reproduction was carefully arranged by an administrative office to balance necromantic potential with genetic diversity. Colum was every one of Silas' relationships by design, every inch of him emphatically bared and transparent to Silas' eye and available for his needs. The cavalier-necromancer bond was valued only in service to the preeminent bond between a worshipper and the Lord of Resurrection, but that alone made it sacred. 

It bothered Silas, then, that he seemed to lose sight of this when he siphoned. It seemed impossible to forget, at first, and then impossible to remember. Anything that delivered you— _entitled_ you to such immense euphoric power could itself only diminish in your mind's eye, inevitably reduced to a tool. It was Silas' birthright to take.

"The White Templars are the conscience of the Dominicus system, at times at the expense of our own," Colum said. "The Emperor understands that better than anyone."

"Then what use is my conscience?" 

"What use is my soul?" Colum asked.

It was a question that begged a textbook answer. Last week Sister Vitula and the Master Templar had returned from the aftermath of an insurgent uprising on a holding planet. With their help the Cohort had regained planetary control, but Sister Vitula was insensate. Silas thought of the statues in the Spire. 

"Power," he said, which he knew to be synonymous with duty—conceding the point to Colum, although he would not truly understand what that meant for another three years.

_Love between a necromancer and cavalier is vital to differentiate them from a soldier's love of the Emperor: they are carrying out a personal devotion that beautifies both types of adoration._

Three weeks after his thirteenth birthday, Silas and Colum embarked on their first Cohort tour. They were there strictly to observe, trailing behind a necromancer in her late forties and her adolescent cousin cavalier. She had been a researcher until the cousin showed surprising compatibility in gestation; despite her late start in missionary work, she was a veteran of the process. It was a typical early intervention, she told them: the locals were getting sloppy with their religious observances and the native officials seemed disinclined to act. She would go in to identify the individuals leading the unrest, and reeducate them as an example to the rest. 

It was done in two days. 

In the building repurposed as a church of the Necrolord Prime, the Templar's robes stayed star-white even as her voice grew hoarse with prayer and her cavalier had to put down his dripping rapier to bring her a glass of water. She siphoned for only six seconds at the very end, the assembled crowd moaning and weeping as she lit up incandescent. 

"Know your audience," she advised Silas after. 

Over time, as he shadowed more missionaries at work, it became obvious to Silas that a great personal sacrifice was required from all Templars of the White Glass. The Templars were honoured to uphold the duty of the Forgiving House, but forgiveness necessitated judgement and penance. 

The Second and the Fourth might conquer planets, but the Eighth House kept them. 

It was the Templars who were sent to heal and rehabilitate the surviving societies in the wake of each war. At least one Eighth chaplain was stationed with every Cohort settlement and at the shoulder of every outposted Third governor. They educated the local populace on the truths of the Tome, and lighted the way towards the glory of the Necromancer Divine. These were not simple or easy tasks, and Silas witnessed their essentiality to the Empire, along with the toll it took on the Eighth cavaliers and the ingratitude of the receiving subjects. 

In equal measure, the Templars kept vigil over the Nine Houses. They provided spiritual guidance and protection from acts of necromantic transgression. On an infrequent but regular basis, Silas saw heretics (Second, Seventh, Third—never Fifth or Ninth) taken in cuffs from the shuttles to the Confessional, where justice was appropriately meted. The Eighth did this in the name of the Necrolord Prime, because Dominicus and its colonized worlds relied upon the order of the Tome. 

Once, he was called upon to assist. He and Colum were summoned into the Confessional, an octagonal chamber bisected by a sheet of warded bone perforated like lace. On the other side was the heretic from the Seventh, which Silas knew because the number had been branded with hot iron on their forehead for cataloguing. It was the first time he had seen propitiation done to another necromancer and he was embarrassed to taste bile at the back of his throat. He didn't know what had happened to the Seventh's cavalier. 

The Master Templar always led the charge when it came to penitents from the Nine Houses, but Sister Vitula was indisposed. The Master Templar only needed someone to hold down the Seventh necromancer for him. 

That same evening, Silas sent away his supper and knelt in prayer to retread the memory in his mind. Colum rested in a chair in the corner of the room without a sound. Silas felt very far away, his body cold and complete like a glazed sculpture, or a diamond set in a chain. The body was just a grave for the soul, after all. Perhaps he had spent too long in the boil of the River's maw. The pain of it never fully faded, lingered enough to grow addictive, as though to counterbalance the pain of the acts it inflicted. Little wonder the Templars had been granted such a crushing power, in equivalence to their immense burden. 

Silas imagined that it must mimic the Emperor's own magic. Surely He too drank from the dark waters beyond the River.

_Their love is the love that fears only for the other: the love of service on both sides._

A year sooner than anticipated, the Master Templar announced his retirement. At fifteen, Silas had been fully ordained for eight months, no longer subject to lessons or evaluations. When the news broke, the first thing he did was visit the Office of Rites to arrange for his coronation. The second thing he did was lock himself and Colum in the inner sacristy.

The inner sacristy stored the most holy artifacts of the Eighth in an interconnected hive of temperature-controlled chambers, including the original copy of the Tome and a set of the Emperor's own robes. The Master Templar held the only key, which Silas now wore on a long chain tucked beneath his tunic. After locking the door, he swallowed and swung around to face Colum.

"It's early, so we need to prepare, but the time is right."

"I'm sure the Office will do an excellent job," Colum said. 

"Not the coronation," Silas snapped. " _We_ need to prepare. I have yet to reach my limit with you, and I intend to today."

Colum shifted, his scabbard clinking against his belt. "It seems like to me you have."

"Insipid," said Silas, whose sense of humour was in irreparable decay. He circled his bare wrists with his own fingers, imagining the featherweight of the Master Templar's chain cuffs. 

"Or maybe I have." The sclerae of Colum's eyes were yellowed. He looked aged on the whole—not older in years, but weathered by time like an old photograph. In the beginning his colour would return after a day or so, but some of the loss seemed permanent now. Silas recalled the physical exam from two days ago: Colum's nude body like antique ivory under the bright laboratory lights, every aspect of its operation distilled to a digit. Sometimes the sight saddened Silas; sometimes it disgusted him. In either case, the feeling was possessive. Occasionally, he thought of the pre-Resurrection fable about a portrait in the attic. 

But Colum was always right next to him. 

"I used to worry," Colum said slowly, "what you would do if you were faced by an enemy you hadn't let yourself prepare for."

"In that daydream, did you often picture yourself as the one standing in my way?" 

"I would not." Colum heaved a sigh. "I am an unbroken vow."

"Tell me, do you think the other Houses welcome our watchful eyes? If they respect us, it is out of loyalty to the Emperor and a modicum of fear. My father the Master Templar has renounced his post, and though his body still breathes, he is already dead in their minds. The Third would destroy us if they could persuade the Second to join forces. And the Emperor would not save us, nor would we be deserving of His grace." 

Silas rolled his sleeves up to the elbow. The chill of the sacristy immediately pricked his forearms and he found himself wishing Colum would move closer. 

"We must prepare so the King of Ida and his ilk never forget how far we wade into the River for their salvation. Brother Asht, what is this conversation? I remember someone telling me I never needed a cavalier's permission." 

"I was right then as you are now, but I didn't think a conversation counted as _needing permission_."

With that, Colum disarmed himself of his rapier and targe and lowered his body into a perfect kneel.

His fealty stung like a reprimand, and the old thought struck Silas again: _What a terrible thing to do to another person_. 

It was a challenge of faith to believe any relationship could survive this act. Silas was burning through all the roles Colum had played for him: parent, caretaker, mentor, partner, brother. He didn't know what was going to be left. He only knew that this was the mission given to him by God, and God never gave you more than you could bear. Once he had understood the sheer magnitude of the risk—of drinking in the River; of cramming Colum into that inscrutable gap so close to the other side—he had also understood that there was no doubt it was worth it. 

The cost was too enormous otherwise, and God was no cheat.

_They do not have to enjoy each other's society; they must simply take their togetherness as assumed. The cavalier who will not sleep in the same room as their necromancer must question themselves as to why._

In the week leading up to his holy coronation, Silas denied himself almost everything. He took no meals, allowed no one to touch him, and prayed in the chapel until the bruises on his knees and shins turned from blue to black. Tremendous devotion, the passersby murmured to each other, such zealous fealty. On the eighth day, the whispers turned into hushed indignation when Colum pushed past the on-lookers and scooped up Silas' prone body. He had passed out on the flagstones.

When Silas woke in his bed, wearing his pajamas with his braid brushed out, he sat up and _sucked_ as hard as he could. 

Colum toppled to the floor like a cut puppet. 

When he opened his eyes again he squinted as if against daylight, but it was only Silas straddling him, still furious and luminous. 

"—you return." Silas panted. His hands were around Colum's neck, the ends of his hair tickling Colum's cheeks. Colum looked dazed, his lips moving but no sound coming out. Silas swallowed and tried not to watch the black leaching out of the whites of Colum's eyes. 

"I told you not to touch me." Silas squeezed Colum's throat and Colum let him, even though Colum could have freed himself with no effort at all. "You refuse to speak to me but you _will_ listen to me—you listen to me."

Colum coughed. "Not—silent out of spite—nothing to say that you want to hear."

Silas cupped Colum's face and squeezed again. His bony fingers pressed against dry, jaundiced cheeks, sunken beneath the shadows under Colum's eyes and the lines on his forehead. The physical evidence was a litany of accusations, as though all of Silas' burdens passed through his own frail body and made their mark on his cavalier. He could see the lab charts in his mind's eye. Colum didn't need to say anything out loud. His weary eyes bored into Silas and the heat rose in Silas' face—from shame or rage, he didn't know. The feeling was always possessive. It was humbling the way Colum never overstepped, and infuriating the way he simply looked at Silas, with no judgement and no forgiveness. He was the perfect cavalier. Silas thought of all the things Colum had been to him—parent, caretaker, mentor, partner, brother—and the things that he had not. His thumb brushed the corner of Colum's mouth. In his anger, it occurred to him that there was more that he could take. 

"Your father was cruel to you," Colum slurred, "so that I would love you more."

Silas stilled, which Colum interpreted as contrition. His body went slack under Silas. 

"It's okay, Si. Don't use it as a punishment," he said. "Don't sully the sacred oath. Remember: one flesh, one end."

Silas felt a deep twist in his chest, like a recoil in slow motion, and his body followed suit off of Colum's prone form. Of course, even now Colum would speak for Silas' well-being and not his own. His legs gave out within a few steps and Silas collapsed by the foot of the bed. He squeezed his eyes shut, seeking the obliviousness of the dark. These days, he dreamt of drowning every night and awoke thirsting for blood just so he could burn his lips on a different salt. His greed deluded him. He had already consumed everything.

_They must each take the other as their ideal._

The Cohort spent nearly four months investigating a series of political assassinations before they finally identified the culprits, one of whom was a Fifth necromancer mole who fled within an hour of being burned. A recovery team was immediately and quietly dispatched—no one wanted to catch the attention of Lady Pent—and they cornered the mole on a satellite planet. There was a brief but bloody battle with the rebels who had sheltered him, and then the Cohort sent a request for the services of the young Master Templar.

Ordinarily, the Eighth excluded itself from the carryings of common justice, but the Cohort missive pointed out that the method of the murders facilitated by the Fifth necromancer were, by the Tome, sacrilegious. More importantly, the missive did not say, the culprits belonged to a terrorist group that posed a particular danger to the Empire and the Emperor Himself. If the Master Templar would attend to this matter, the Cohort could expedite a shuttle. 

The Master Templar sent his assent, and two Cohort soldiers, non-necromantic as per Eighth requirements, escorted the mole to the Spire, and upon arrival were escorted in turn by chaplains to the Confessional. 

According to the records, it would be Master Octakiseron's first judgement since his coronation and the first one he'd ever led alone, but if the Cohort soldiers expected a display of inexperience or nerves, they could detect none from the young Master Templar. Silas Octakiseron entered the Confessional like it was a church he'd been preaching in since he was prepubescent, his cavalier primary Colum the Eighth a perfect half-step behind.

The Fifth necromancer was already shackled on the other side of the lacy bone divider, half-conscious with dried blood on his face. The water bucket containing the quenched brand still smoked faintly, and the stench of burned flesh lingered in the air.

"Master Templar." The senior Cohort officer, a colonel by her uniform, greeted him. "We need you to ask the spirit some questions at the end."

Silas Octakiseron accepted a tiny glass vial from the attending chaplain and dabbed the clear liquid with the tip of his ring finger on his temples, his eyelids, and the center of his tongue. His lips moved in silent prayer, and then he unfastened the clasp of his magnificent silver mantle, letting his cavalier catch it before it slithered to the floor. 

"Master Templar—"

"This is not an interrogation." Military training saved the colonel from flinching at his unnervingly deep voice. Octakiseron didn't look at her as he approached the divider. "Confession is for the willing."

"He's Blood of Eden," the colonel snapped, but fell back upon seeing the cavalier touch the hilt of his rapier. 

"I've never worked on another spirit magician before," Octakiseron murmured to himself in that sonorous, mournful voice. 

Delicately, he pulled back his pristine white sleeves, revealing wrists just as pale adorned with thin chainmail cuffs, and began a prayer: "Let the King Undying, ransomer of death, scourge of death, vindicator of death…"

Later, the soldiers who witnessed the confession said they only saw half of it before the light grew too bright to bear. It took them by surprise, because first the darkness had gathered in the corners of the room, the ruddy hair and blood of the prisoner bleeding grey. Perhaps it was a necromantic optical trick, the darkness throwing the Master Templar in greater relief, irradiating him. They would not say that it had been a mercy to be blinded once the shadows began drawing strange shapes with the prisoner's limbs.


End file.
